Students from four local high schools will participate May 6 in a state Supreme Court program designed to educate young Tennesseans about the judicial branch of government.
The 420 students and their teachers will attend a special Supreme Court session at the Blount County Justice Center where justices will hear oral arguments in three actual cases. Following oral arguments in the criminal appeals, students will meet for question and answer sessions with attorneys who presented each side in their cases.
Participating students and teachers also will join the Supreme Court for lunch. During lunch and a program, students will be seated at tables with the five Supreme Court justices, local judges and attorneys, state, city, county and school officials.
Circuit Court Judge D. Kelly Thomas of Maryville is coordinating the 5th Judicial District project. Schools participating in SCALES - an acronym for the Supreme Court Advancing Legal Education for Students - are from Alcoa, Heritage, Maryville and William Blount High Schools.
Teachers whose classes are involved in the SCALES project attended a three-hour professional development session led by Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals Judge James Curwood Witt of Madisonville who discussed the state and federal court systems, answered questions and reviewed their students' cases. Teachers also were provided with notebooks of materials to use in their classrooms, including suggested activities, and SCALES Project handbooks for each student.
"The Tennessee Supreme Court believes that knowledge and understanding of the judicial branch of government are essential to good citizenship," Chief Justice Frank Drowota said. "The SCALES Project is designed to educate young participants about the system they will inherit. The interaction we have with the students at lunch and throughout the day also renews our faith that our nation's future is in good hands."
Local judges and attorneys met with participating teachers at the professional development session to schedule classroom visits to discuss the cases students will hear. After justices rule in the cases, copies of the court's opinions will be provided to the classes.
"The SCALES Project is important because it creates a partnership between the judiciary, the Bar and schools to promote a better understanding of the judicial branch of government," the chief justice said. "We hope that teachers will use the materials to make judicial education a continuing part of their curriculum."
Issues in the cases students will hear beginning at 8:45 a.m. include whether an inmate's pro se (filed by the inmate, rather than an attorney) petition for post-conviction relief presented sufficient grounds to be entitled to relief and whether the trial court erred in not appointing counsel to represent the child sex abuser in his post-conviction action; whether there was sufficient evidence to support convictions for criminally negligent homicide for the death of a child, reckless endangerment and reckless aggravated assault and whether the trial court properly sentenced the inmate who is appealing; and whether the trial court erred in an attempted rape of a child case by denying alternative sentencing based on polygraph - or lie detector - results. The three cases are Connie Lee Arnold v. State of Tennessee, to be heard by students from Alcoa and Heritage High Schools; State of Tennessee v. Tracy Lorenzo Goodwin, to be heard by students from Maryville High School; and State of Tennessee v. Gregory Pierce, to be heard by students from William Blount High School.
Including SCALES in the 5th th Judicial District, nearly 13,000 Tennessee students from 289 schools across the state have taken part in the project since the Supreme Court initiated it in 1995.